Legacy? Sure, we can talk about Tom Brady’s legacy. Obviously, when you look at the way Brady carried the Patriots to the Super Bowl and the way he played Sunday, he added quite a bit to his legacy.

Wait. Are you saying you think Brady damaged his legacy Sunday? What?

Sometimes I wonder if people watched the same game I did. Brady completed 27 of 41 passes for 276 yards and two touchdowns. He also threw one interception, when he underthrew a deep ball to Rob Gronkowski. (A healthy Gronkowski probably would have knocked that ball down if he didn’t catch it, but Gronkowski had an injured ankle.) And Brady took a safety when he threw another deep ball to nobody from his own end zone.

But overall, these facts should not be in dispute: Brady took an otherwise nondescript Patriots team to the brink of a championship, and he played well Sunday. At the end of the first half, he completed 10 of 10 passes and drove the Pats 98 yards for a touchdown. He broke the Super Bowl record for consecutive completions.

Quarterbacks have played worse than Brady played Sunday and won Super Bowl MVP. One of them was Tom Brady: In his first Super Bowl, he completed 16 of 27 passes for 145 yards and a touchdown, and he won the game’s MVP award.